I have this fear. I fear I’ll end up just mediocre so I tend to not try, so that way I can never say I failed. I can never celebrate my accomplishments either. It’s a crappy state to be in. It’s why I never wrote all that seriously. If I never finish anything, I can never worry that it’s not good enough. But who wants to live that way? I found Nanowrimo at my lowest point (well, my lowest writing point we’ll say) and I thought I’d give novel writing a shot after writing screenplays…or parts of screenplays for so long.

What a breath of fresh air this cliché is not and Nanowrimo was! I didn’t finish the story I was doing but I hit my 50k and that was empowering. I made writing friends with the community that Nano has built and was spurred on to keep writing more. It still took a little time before I was writing more regularly, but it was a start.

I now have my first complete novel that I’m editing (yes, I’ve blogged this all before. Shush). The point of this is that you can’t let the worry get you down. My words will never be perfect no matter how many times I change them. I can edit until my fingers bleed and I pass out from the lack of nutrients coffee doesn’t bring and it will still have mistakes or could be changed, could be better. We are not perfect which means our beautiful babies will never be perfect either. The great thing is: everyone else is flawed too! I’ve read plenty of traditionally published books and found mistakes or an overuse of words. It seems readers don’t mind little mistakes if you have a good story to tell. That and a fun and different voice. Now, don’t start panicking that your voice isn’t different or that your story is like everyone else’s. Again, I have read published works that aren’t perfect. Just write the best story you can. If you write it, they will come. Your voice will always be different because YOU’RE the one writing. No one else can write quite like you, but that’s a motivational blog for another day.

Now, one of you needs to remind me of this often as I tend to be a little forgetful….